DICHOTOMY
by silk1
Summary: You need to find her Jack. You need to bring her back. You need to find little red riding hood and keep her out of the wilderness. You need to find the bad wolf.”
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I don not own the doctor Jack or Rose. Russel rules us all and I worship at this feet!

NOTES: Just a little drabble now that Rose is coming back…

Dichotomy

She sits in the dark. For all the world looking almost like a child. Her whispered words feared across galaxies. Armies raised, empires rising and crumbling to dust by the meaning of her whispers. She looks so young, so fragile …so very much like nothing but a frail girl with ink-black hair and eyes like arctic ice. She smiles at you, watching you walk across the cavern towards her …the barest curling of lips. It's enough to send grown men scramble for safety.

But you don't scary easy.

You are not afraid of a girl clothed in rags, crouching on a rock like some hungry animal.

You travelled across the universe to find her.

To have her help you find your way …

The oracle they call her here on this dark, cold planet …where nothing grows, hardy anything lives. There is nothing here but black deserts and death. And her ….the girl, the maiden. You've already been there …to see the mother on Caronit, in the black tower upon white cliffs. To see the crone in some backwater fisher's town on the shores of the raging red seas on Aromet. No answers there.

So this is where all roads led you. To a teenage girl, hiding in a cave on a desert planet.

"Captain Jack Harkness." She whispers …her voice like a caress, drawing you closer.

"You haven't lost your good looks…yet. Still that pretty face …"

"I need your help"

"No….you need an answer. That is the only help I can give. Everything has gone wrong. You feel it in your bones, in your breath …in your skin. The path never travelled is the one this universe has missed…forsaken. And now everything is dying, the light and the stars and now…they hurt even you."

Even if those eyes were blind they could see through you. She cocks her head like a bird and stares at you, her eyes hungry, washing over you almost as though you could be her prey.

"I have the answer you seek." She says slowly, rising from her crouch, her limbs moving gracefully like reeds in the wind. The threadbare rags bare more than they conceal, her skin is ghostly white, shining like a star in the musty darkness of the cave. She wears those rags like a queen.

"I have not asked you anything yet." You say, your hand unconsciously reaching for your weapon. She watches it with amusement, shaking her head.

"The question is still the same, you already asked my kin, those who come after me. Now I'm the only one left. They sent you here. You travelled far, so very far, but the question is in every breath you draw…" She points at you, sinking back into her crouch while all that ink-black hair slides over her shoulders, hiding part of her face. Her laughter sounds harsh in your ears, like shattering glass.

"The question that haunts you, the question that eats away at you at night …it is in your heart, in every beat, your blood hums with it….chanting desperately over and over …You want to know. You need to know."

"How do I stop it?"

She takes a deep breath and it comes out in a gasp. Her glittering eyes fixated on you. She knows what you mean. Knows it probably better than you do. No need to explain, no need to elucidate. There is nothing but silence for the space of several heartbeats.

"What you want is to change …everything, but you cannot find the right place to begin. You need to go back Jack…all the way back. You were not there, but you need to be. You have to change places. To erase this dark future, you must change history. You can't bring her back…so you have to make sure she does not fall into the black before the walls close forever. To save this universe you must give her back to him."

You wish she would speak in riddles, but in your heart you know what she means. You know it with a surety that borders on madness. In your soul you know she is right. And some heavy burden lifts from your heart. Because she told you, what you really needed to know…that there is a way. That things CAN be changed. No need to worry about the how now. You'll do that later. As long as there is a way, you'll find it. The rest is details. Still you don't trust yourself. Still there is a part of you that needs to hear it, that needs to hear another being say it out loud.

"Who?"

She smiles as though she understands, cocking her head again.

"The one. The one who is both. The girl in the fairy-tale and the beast that stalks the dark. The one and only, the flower that could quiet the oncoming storm, the one he believed in when everything had come to dust…the girl who can heal the hearts of a lonely god. The one he could not leave behind. So many others come and gone. But her name still makes time sing … You need to find her, Jack. You need to find little red riding hood and keep her out of the wilderness. You need to find the bad wolf."


	2. Companion

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Davies owns us all

Notes: Well…this was supposed to be a one time thing, but after you guys told me it had to continue that pesky little Muse would not let go. I have no Idea where this is going, so you'll have to bear with me!

**Companion **

For a moment it's hard to breathe. And as one crushing weight is lifted from his heart, another settles firmly on his shoulders, heavy enough to bring him to his knees.

Find Rose, save the universe. Nothing could be easier. No task could be more impossible.

"I can help you." Her voice slithers through the air like a snake, like a cool hand caressing his skin. She kneels on the edge of the rock now, arms stretched outward, beckoning him closer. "I can help you find a way…" Her voice is nothing more than a whisper, but it carries far in the damp air of the cavern. Her sapphire eyes are fixed on his face and for a moment, Jack can see something like desperation in their depths.

"How?" he asks, his voice hard. But she shakes her head, watching him while he moves closer so very slowly.

"Take me with you." It's the one thing he did not see coming.

He stops in his tracks, a harsh, bitter laugh erupting from his lips.  
"I'm not the doctor, I travel alone."

She purses her lips, her dark brows knitting together in dismay. She nods, her ink-black hair sliding over her shoulders. "Ah, yes. Captain Jack Harkness. Tell me, how does it feel, knowing you are all alone in the universe…with only one being still remembering your name, your history…your pain."

"You know nothing about my pain." He spits the words out like they have a bad taste, ready to turn on his heel and march out of this god forsaken place, now that he has the answer that he came for. But he doesn't, because for the first time this dainty, scary girl clothed in dirty rags does something he did not expect. She looks at him, a bitter, jittery laugh fit to match his own escaping her throat. She pushes her hair back over her shoulders, revealing for the first time a delicate, heart-shaped face that has its own heartbreaking beauty underneath all that dirt. And suddenly her voice is neither husky, nor sultry, nor caressing. It is just a voice.

"I understand pain. An ocean of pain, just as vast and deep and dark as yours. Don't you dare…don't you dare doubt that. I was not always this …" She makes an impatient gesture that embraces everything; the cave, the rags, the dirt, her matted, tangled hair…  
"Long ago I was just a girl who knew nothing about the future or the past or destiny and stars. I was just a girl. A little girl that could see images in a waterglass or a puddle. Strange images she did not understand. I had a mother and a sister, I do not remember their names or where I come from, but long ago I was just a girl. Until they came to take me from my home, until they chained me to this rock, trapped me in this cave and bade me talk of destinies that where not my own… I know pain."

Her anger is like heat, singing and raging around her. And suddenly something shifts. Jack isn't sure if it's his perception of her or the universe adjusting to her anger ….but suddenly she seems to be more of a person in his eyes. Suddenly there seems to be more of her …not just this half-mad, half-naked girl who speaks riddles in the voice of a temptress.

"Who are you?" he asks, his voice tired now.

She laughs, throwing her head back. Her voice takes on those hoarse, eerie tones again.

"I'am the oracle of Delphi, I'am Cassandra, I'am Morgan le Fay, I'am Galadriel's mirror. I am every girl that ever saw with more than just her eyes and paid the price… my name is legion. I am the maiden. I have no name. It does not matter."

For a while they just stare at each other. A part of Jack is weary, worried and suspicious of her …this feral, gift-cursed girl. Whatever she had once been, she is not human anymore …but then neither is he. So who is he to judge? His ship is big enough for two…and maybe, just maybe he needs all the help he could get. That is his logical reasoning or so he tells himself. And maybe, just maybe he is just as lonely as she said.

"Can you really help me?" he asks, his voice stern and hard.  
She lifts one brow, leaning forward as far as she can without falling from her perch high upon the rock.  
"I can help you find his Rose. That much I promise…"

He looks into those glittering eyes from up close, finding some of the madness and fear that drives him in their depths. He nods to himself and slowly holds out his hand.

She cocks her head again, watching him with amused delight. Jack almost laughs about himself.

Captain Jack Harkness, trying act the gentleman for a dirty seer in a damp cave at the end of the galaxy. Priceless.

She jumps down from her perch on the rock, landing next to him on her feet…like some giant cat. From up close she is even smaller and daintier than he thought, so thin and skinny that she seems to be about to starve.

They walk out of the cave in silence, while he wonders if he made a mistake. There is no one to stop them, he realizes. Whoever brought her here, whoever kept her in that cave is gone. On one of her skinny ankles a rusty manacle rattles with every step she takes. The chain that kept her on that rock long since rusted and broken.

When she sees his ship, there is a childlike wonder in her face. She takes a shuddering breath, her eyes so very bright when she looks at him. "I thought I would never leave this place …"  
She hasn't cried in millenia. She will not cry now. She might look like a young girl, but she really isn't. It's all there in her face, she does not say it. Still he knows, because it's all there in her eyes. He can see it, because it is what he sees every time he looks in a mirror.

"Where do we go?"

"Earth…" her voice is barely above a whisper and the word makes his heart skip a fearful beat. He nods to his new companion. Taking her all in; the ink-black tangled hair, the dirt, the rags. She needs a bath, he decides. The ship's access ramp comes down with a hiss.

"We need to get rid of those … I have some clothes in the ship"

She looks at him for a moment, then shrugs and rips the rags right off her body. Her skin is ghostly pale. Being naked does not seem to bother her at all as she walks by him and up the ramp with a feline grace. The thought actually makes Jack smirk.

"Welcome aboard …" he chuckles to himself.


	3. contained

Contained

_**Contained**_

It did not take much coercing to get her to take a bath. The ship has a few luxuries and the tub is one of them. He can hear her delighted squeals from the bathroom while the ship takes off and leaves orbit. She spends two hours in there. Singing softly to herself in a language he has never heard. Jack guesses that she might be looking like a prune by now.

He half expects her to be naked when she finally reappears. But she is not.

She wears the towel like a dress and in some far away part of his mind he notes, that they need to get her some clothes.

Despite her two hour soak her skin is still almost translucent; there is no colour in those cheeks. Not even scolding hot water could give her skin a healthy, rosy tint. She is still ghostly pale …living in a cave for who knows how long will do that to you.

Her long dark hair is untangled, still dripping tiny drops of water onto the floor as she walks towards him. Her eyes are pools of darkness, eerily large in her pretty, innocent face.

Jack sits in the pilot-chair, his back turned to the window and the stars outside, the glory and emptiness of space. Sometimes just looking at it hurts. So he watches her move towards him instead, silent in her feline grace.

He sits unmoving, his face cold and hard like a mask.

He can feel the hope, the tiny spark, the warm flame sputtering inside of him and it fills him with a fear he cannot admit even to himself. He needs to be cool, calm, collected …he needs to protect himself from that hope…or he would inevitable break down and cry. He's been there before. He can't do it again. Not ever …not if he wants to keep his sanity.

So he keeps his mind on her and stays impassive, even as she straddles him.

There's nothing sexual about it. His body knows it. Still, he can't suppress the shiver as she puts her hands around his face, leaning close to him. He cant help but wonder how much the seeing maiden really knows about love and lust and the whispers of warm bodies.

Her breath slithers across his neck and cheeks. It is the only sound. She gazes at him from up close, her eyes looking straight into his, while her hands frame his face softly, delicately.

And he knows with absolute certainty, that this girl …that lithe, fragile body is just a shell. It's not her. She was once this girl, but whatever she was is long gone. Replaced by wisdom that does not age. Her body is a shell much like his, a prison for something ancient. And after centuries or millennia if being imprisoned on that rock, her body holds a force it cannot possibly contain. And that is why she seems to be quite utterly mad to some. But Jack knows better, knows from his own experience of living so very long …that she is probably so completely insane, that it is as close to being completely sane as one can get.

She looks at him still and her eyes fill with tears, slowly and quietly. She cries for him, for what she sees in him. For her hurt and anger and grief reflected in his eyes, in his bruised and battered soul.

"What do you see?" he finally whispers, his hoarse voice betraying the turmoil inside, even if his face is still hard and cold.

She smiles at him. Caressing his face with cold fingers. And he wonders if she sees only his sordid past or his future.

"So much love, so much pain." She whispers.

He gives her a bitter smile, taking her hands, unsure of what to say. Maybe he rescued her to save not just the universe but also himself.

"I'm sorry." She suddenly says, cocking her head to the side with a puzzled frown.

"I'am so sorry"

That sends a jerk through his whole body, even when her half naked body in his lap did not. He grabs her waist, steadying her, staring at her.

He knows those words, heard them spoken a million times by a million creatures with varying sincerity.

But never quite like that.

It's not HIS voice, but the exact cadence, the exact pronunciation, the exact regret and pain mirrored in those few words.

"Doctor"…the word escapes him before he can rein himself in and she watches him with fascination. As though there is more to it than just saying the only name he knows.

Her eyes flutter shut. And lips part slighty and she sighs ….her head dipping backwards so very gracefully until her whole body is one perfect arch.

"It sings" she whispers. "It sings for her. Mourning ...forever mourning the loss, what might have been. It's calling her across time and space….singing her name. "

Her head comes back up and her eyes open, boring into his.

"Rose…" She whispers, her voice tender and so full of longing that it could break hearts. It's not her longing. Jack knows that and yet he can feel gooseflesh crawling across his arms.

Then she shakes her head, like waking from a dream. She leans her head against his shoulder, exhausted. He waits, lets himself hold her just for a moment.

Then she looks up and smiles at him, writhing on his lap with a playful smile. Reminding him again, that the pretty, scary girl is an illusion. Just a facet of whatever she is now.

"That is a very bad idea." Jack tells her neutrally. The maiden lifts her eyebrows, giving him an amused expression. But she climbs down from his lap anyway.

"For now it is." She answers with a shrug. "We have things to do. We need to go to earth."

"Where?"

"Not where …" she tells him simply "When … This ship can jump in time, yes?"

He gives her a nod.

"We need to get you some clothes first and …"

"And?" she asks, bemused.

He looks her over, giving her a sincere smile. "And I can't call you Maiden for the rest of our journey. We need to get you a name."


End file.
